This is a piece I made, using scraps of multicoloured polyester organza over purple felt, and another layer of organza over the top. We used rabbit hutch wire as a template for making the grid, and then made extra marks on it, then removed the top layer of organza in some places. The photo isn’t a very good one.

I went to a workshop today with Margaret Beal on using a soldering iron to fuse synthetic fabrics. I’ll take some photos tomorrow and post them. It was brilliant fun and I created the most wonderful shiny patches to embellish things with. We used acrylic felt and lots of different polyester organzas but you can use any synthetic fabrics. We used a square of glass to put the fabric on to seal it with the soldering iron and you can even make patchwork by sealing the edges of squares of fabric!

Watch this space… I would do it tonight but I’m exhausted. I got back home at about 5 pm and since then have put back the books from 4 bookcases in our living room now the painting is all finished.

When we go on holiday, I always ensure that I research the textile museums in the area. This is probably because my husband is mad on visiting airfields and cathedrals, and the kids always have their own agenda, so I’ve got to find things that interest me or die of boredom!

Last summer we stayed in a gite in Alsace in Eastern France, and went to Mulhouse, where there was the perfect combination – a textile museum and a car museum! So I had a blissful afternoon at the Museum of Printed Textiles while Edmund took the kids off to see the cars.

The thing I found most interesting was that they didn’t print with dyes in the early years. They printed (using wooden blocks) with different mordants (which are the things which, in natural dyeing, make the dyestuff bond with the fabric) and then put the whole thing in one dyebath. Using different mordants produced different colours on the cloth.

It is well worth seeing – they have demonstrations of the printing techniques there, too.

This is a sample I did of a possible alternative design, using two layers of Tyvek, one painted in brown/black, the other bronze/gold. I sewed it with a thick variegated thread in the bobbin, from the reverse. Then I heated it with a heat gun.

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Hello. My name's Liz Plummer and I'm an artist based in Newport, South Wales, UK, I love dyeing, printing, painting and stitching.
This blog is about the influences on my work, inspiration, my daily life,
and the processes of creating. Enjoy!